I use metric (Australian) but I do believe the old Imperial measures have better sounding names.

It's much easier to say "mile" than "kilometer", "inch" instead of "centimetre", "pound" over "kilogram".

As a fellow Aussie - I'd have expected you to be used to "kay" for kilometer, "kilo" for kilogram as that's all you tend to here, although you've got a point with inches, but I'd have to say inches/centimeters don't come up that often. As far as for a universal system - metric seems to make sense - given one of the mars landers went splat wasting X millions of dollars due to this conversion issue, and given the US is one of 3 countries still using imperial measurements, it would make sense purely from an ease of interacting/scientific trade point of view that I don't understand the retisence.

That said, why is it in these stories of runaway acceleration, that nobody slaps the thing into neutral and hits the brakes? The stories always read like "I was powerless to stop my deathcar!" but drivers have lots of options in situations like that. You can even just turn the car off and hope you haven't picked up a vacuum leak.

I believe the issue is that some of these cars have a computer controlled auto gearbox that does not actually disengage drive when slapped into neutral.

Posted
by
timothyon Wednesday December 16, 2009 @05:53PM
from the vlc-generally-rocks dept.

plasmacutter writes "The Video Lan dev team has recently come forward with a notice that the number of active developers for the project's MacOS X releases has dropped to zero, prompting a halt in the release schedule. There is now a disturbing possibility that support for Mac will be dropped as of 1.1.0. As the most versatile and user-friendly solution for bridging the video compatibility gap between OS X and windows, this will be a terrible loss for the Mac community. There is still hope, however, if the right volunteers come forward."

The break-even point would immediately change to about 2 years if people had to actually (gasp!) pay for the damage their carbon emissions produce, or carbon emissions were capped at the level necessary to avert catastrophe.

What price would that make solar cells? The initial ones would cost a massive amount in carbon taxes. Think about the energy costs and emissions involved in the production of solar cells. Of course once they reach critical mass and the amount of energy produced by them that goes into production of more.... but until that point.

An independent audit by former New South Wales ombudsman Irene Moss has found a general "subtle shift" towards secrecy in Australia.The audit reviewed legislation and practices related to free speech issues affecting the media in Australia.Moss says Australians should not be complacent about declining media freedom."I observe a subtle shift, which shows we need to be vigilant," she said. "Although we enjoy tremendous democratic freedom by international standards, we shouldn't take it for granted."

The report was presented by the media coalition group called Right to Know, which includes the ABC. The group says it will use the report to pressure all levels of government to lift their game.

Himuanam writes: Former Intel CEO Grove rips medical research community, contrasting their lack of progress with the tech industry's juggernaut of breakthroughs over the past half-century or so.

"On Sunday afternoon, Grove is unleashing a scathing critique of the nation's biomedical establishment. In a speech at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, he challenges big pharma companies, many of which haven't had an important new compound approved in ages, and academic researchers who are content with getting NIH grants and publishing research papers with little regard to whether their work leads to something that can alleviate disease, to change their ways."

sea_stuart writes: "Like your ADSL connection to go 100 times faster? Despite the grim state of Australian mathematics and science, there is still exciting original work being done Down Under. John Papandriopoulos, a Research Fellow with the ARC Special Research Centre for Ultra-Broadband Information Networks (CUBIN), in the EEE department at the University of Melbourne has developed a method to reduce crosstalk interference in 9Mbps (ADSL), 25Mbps (ADSL2+), and 250Mbps (VDSL2) to bring speeds up the theoretical maxima possible. With an Australian Federal election due in a few weeks, and both parties promising improved broadband speeds and access, (despite technical limitations in both parties offerings) this is a welcome development, hopefully enabling higher speeds without huge expenses."Link to Original Source

DragonFire1024 writes: "Rare earthquake in a cold place A magnitude 5.8 earthquake has struck in a place where earthquakes are rare, but sometimes large. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), at 3:35 p.m (eastern time) the 5.8 quake struck in Antarctica, 105 kilometers (65 miles) south, southeast of Casey Station or 2565 kilometers (1590 miles) north of the South Pole."

Wi-Fi overseer the Wi-Fi Alliance (WFA) will in June begin testing pre-standard next-generation 802.11n wireless networking kit to make sure the products all work with each other, the organisation said today.

Posted
by
kdawsonon Tuesday May 15, 2007 @11:54PM
from the go-ahead-and-get-mad dept.

obtuse writes "With a finding that may explain Internet trolls — or at least building contractors — U. of Michigan researchers have discovered that individuals with high levels of testosterone find an angry face rewarding. In their experiments, this was true even if the angry image was perceived subliminally so that the subjects didn't register it consciously."

I think that my website: http://bugga.net/ is a better place for my rants than slashdot, so wander on over there if you want to have a look, me I might write in here twice a year if I feel enthusiastic.
M